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Utah vs. UNLV Post-Game Quotes
3/10/2006 12:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 10, 2006
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Utah
Coach Elaine Elliott: Well, I thought it was a good hard played game, very physical. Both teams, you know, really I thought got after it. Vegas has a great athletic team and they pose a lot of problems on the glass. And the second half, that got away from us. The first half, we weren't talking about so many of the boards and second chances and possessions. And second half we were having to talk about the possession game and the fact this they had too many. So, it's a good win for us.
Question: Shona, you spent a lot of the game guarding Sheena Moore. What was the key to holding the her down and the rest of the shooters?
Shona Thorburn: They're so quick and athletic. And the fact that Sheena can pull up and shoot on a dime and elevate over you. She's a tough assignment. And I think we did a great job of holding them to a low shooting percentage and did a good job of staying in front and getting a hand up on them.
Question: Shona, can you talk a little bit about what happened in the second half and how you were able to broke the game open?
Shona Thorburn: I think we came out strong and we had a couple quick baskets. We were aggressive and we pushed it on them. And I don't think we gave them, the first part of the second half, a loft second chance points, which that's where they really excel. We did a good job controlling the boards, one and out for them, and hitting our open shots.
Question: Kim and Shona, can you maybe both address the fact that you haven't won a Mountain West tournament yet, and you got two now, and just what would it mean to you to win this thing?
Kim Smith: It would mean a lot to win it. Every year, well, for the last two years, we've kind of had to watch the celebration, and then nervously and anxiously await the selection show. And it would be great to turn things around this year and know, especially now since you have to wait until Monday, that you're going to go to the tournament.
Shona Thorburn: I want to know what it feels like to cut down the nets.
Question: Could you just talk about the rebounding. They did seem to get a lot of offensive boards, you're able to withstand that and win the game?
Coach Elaine Elliott: It's just a difficult task. They're pretty relentless on the glass when they have that mindset. That's why Joh is in there. We needed a better presence on the boards, and she did that for us. You could kind of see that physically she matches up well in that regard. So, it's just one of the things that you know can be a factor. Today it didn't end up being so. That's fortunate for us.
Question: Coach, the big delay in the first half, obviously unusual situation especially in a game like this. I guess what are you telling the girls during that and how do you keep the team focused?
Coach Elaine Elliott: Well, I asked that they talk a little basketball while they're on the bench, just maybe not the things they sometimes talk about when they get together, just to try to keep focused. You don't get upset. It's just a situation. There's nothing you can do. No better or worse for anybody. You get ready to play again. We wanted to sort of start that as almost like the start of the game again. We got quite ready to play. We did well. Came out of the blocks early in the game. That was the about the only added piece of information, was like, new game, let's go.
Question: Coach, can you talk about holding them to 29 percent shooting and also your feelings about breaking through and winning a tournament tomorrow maybe?
Coach Elaine Elliott: Well, I always think that when you have a low shooting percentage, it's just I never believe it's only on one end of the floor or one side of the game. You hope it's because you are getting a hand up and there's not a lot of open things. Usually obviously you wouldn't be giving up transition baskets, uncontested kinds of things on the full court. Those things lead to high percentage shooting. At the same time, everybody looks back on a poor shooting tonight and can attest to saying there's plenty of those shoots we would take again. We don't take full credit and we don't feel like it wasn't a part of our effort as well. The tournament, well, I mean, you'd love to have the kids experience that. It's the one thing in my mind unfortunate about the difference between regular season and the regular tournament, because the regular season is something that we really believe in, and trying to put that body of work together to be able to be in an NCAA tournament no matter what happens at these three day deals. But this is that, you know, exciting thing where people are cutting down nets. And so you very seldom get to do that as a regular season champion. In that way it's an experience that's fun to have. And I would love certainly if that happened for our kids. That's most of it.
Question: Second game in a row you got a nice contribution late from a freshman. After Perry was in trouble, Felipe came up big. Can you comment?
Coach Elaine Elliott: It was nice. She's learning. She played within herself tonight. She did what she can do really well, which is big body to board, didn't press things on offense, let it come to her. She is very talented, and it will be very good. First of all, she's ready to play. When you have kids that aren't playing every game and are playing in certain situations, if their head is not there, if there's self pity, concern about what's happened in the past, they're not going to step on the floor and do what she did. She's to be commended for having her head in the game and ready to go.
Question: Coach, will you stick around and check out this game and?
Coach Elaine Elliott: Yes, there's a lot we'll watch the game, and try to watch with some purpose. You don't know until it's over what's going to happen or who it's going to be. It's just as good to do that as to go sit in the hotel. The kids will go to dinner and the coaching staff will think about the game and meet up later after dinner and try to get focused for tomorrow.
UNLV
Coach Regina Miller: Well, I thought we didn't play well enough obviously to beat this team this afternoon. We probably, when I think of 40 minutes in a ball game, we probably played, I don't know, 12, 15 minutes total. Obviously that's not enough to beat a very good team, disciplined Utah team. But I thought two guards battled really hard two of the senior guards and, that's why I brought them in with me today, and that is Nejlah Clark and Brittney Thomas. You can't come out in a game with only six assists and a lot more turnovers, in order to have again a success against a team like Utah. If you don't score at the offensive end, they're going to find a way to score win their motion. They move a lot. You don't catch them standing very often, other than when the ball is dead. So they beat us a couple times on some back screens and some dribble penetration to the basket. And that really hurt us, and we didn't score when they scored.
Question: For the two players, what was the problem making shots today? Very simple question. Is there a simple answer?
Brittney Thomas: I'll say specifically rhythm, not being in the rhythm, in the flow of the game. In the beginning it's hard. You try to find a rhythm, get going. And as time goes on, you start to think more about your shot. And I think that's had a lot to do with our some of players. And also forcing shots. Instead of shooting directly in the flow of our offense, we put up some forced shots, some tough shots, which hurt us in the end.
Question: Nejlah, you came in that first half and kind of gave the Rebels some enthusiasm and tenacity on defense. Talk about your playing today?
Nejlah Clark: I think it was important for me to come out and give intensity on defense because I think that's what our team needed at the time. The team seemed down on defense. I felt whenever I was going to get in, I was going to give them whatever they needed at that time, whether it was defense, whether its was rebounding, just someone talking to them. I tried to make sure that transferred to them.
Question: Maybe for both of you athletes. It seems like intensity wasn't there in the second half. I know Utah, they changed the pace of the game a bit. I didn't see that second half like you guys had in the first half. Do you agree or what was the difference?
Brittney Thomas: I'll agree. I believe, like you said, when Nejlah came in, we dictated the flow of the game. We made some stops but didn't necessarily convert on all of them. As the second half came around we didn't dictate as we did in the first half. And it showed. It really did show. And it was a come out. It came out like that.
Question: For both players, both young players in this program. How important is it to be hopefully playing next week to continue your development? How important will playing somewhere next week, whether it's in the NCAA or the NIT, be for both of your development?
Nejlah Clark: I think it's very important. Hopefully we're playing in the NCAA tournament next week. I think that's the key right there. I hope the selection committee look at our games and see the losses we had, we was in all of these games. And we didn't play Rebel basketball. It's not like we lost playing Rebel basket. We lost because we beat ourselves.
Question: From a development standpoint, is it important to get more court time more advanced experienced playing?
Brittney Thomas: Definitely. We're seniors. We want to go out strong for the youth. It's important for them to get a taste of it. And maybe next year or the years to come with Coach Miller, they can go to the tournament, so be it, and be successful.
Question: Do you fully expect to be playing next week somewhere, someplace?
Coach Regina Miller: Yes. Definitely.
Question: Have you done enough to maybe get an at large NCAA bid even though you lost today or does this put you in a precarious bubble position?
Coach Regina Miller: You know, our league is strong enough. The last time we went to the NCAA tournament, they took four teams. So, to take 'chance' out the picture, it would have been nice to somehow pull off I guess it would have been considered another upset against Utah today and get ourselves into a championship game, to try to win that. And that's only the way to take chance out, obviously win it and play your way in. Without two wins against New Mexico, being a top 25 team, within a week I would think the selection committee will look at our league overall and see, geez that's a strong league. There's a lot of competitive teams. I felt all along, any one of six of us could win this tournament. And today we simply didn't play well enough to beat Utah. So, you certainly hope so that we'll be playing next week, and perhaps we'll maybe get four or five teams into the NCAA tournament. Other leagues have done it. If I'm not mistaken, I think we're ranked either fifth or sixth out of 32 conferences, and that's pretty good. I would be concerned if we were 10, 11 or 12.
Question: Why was it such a problem making shots today from your perspective?
Coach Regina Miller: Yeah, well, I thought we missed a lot of chippers around the basket, some layups. Some were with contact but you have to finish through contact. We practiced all year with contact drills, and you got to be able to finish and make the play. And hopefully the official will blow the whistle. And if they do, it's a bonus. I thought we missed some chippers. I thought we gave up some easy looks within our offense, slow jump shots, and created a tougher shot for ourselves by overpenetrating. As BT said, we didn't really have any rhythm in what we were doing offensively. As a coach that's a bit frustrating because you're on the side and you can't really control that. I thought a key point in the game for us is that we battle to take the lead late in the first half, and then we lost that last segment going into the half. It was about three minutes and 45 seconds to go, and we just didn't perform. I inserted Nikki Hitchens. We missed some key check outs. I thought Utah was able to keep the momentum or hurt us. We worked hard, you know, 27 seconds per session, and then you give up the offensive board. You miss a check out, and that hurt. Coming out the half, we were only down 3 regardless. We had the ball and didn't we had two possessions where we didn't score and had an opportunity, and then they came down and scored I think two possessions. To me that's like an eight point swing.
Question: Why has this team had trouble putting together 35 minutes of intense basketball?
Coach Regina Miller: Well, we have going down the stretch here. I really felt like we're peaking at the right time. And we put together, I thought, 39 minutes at TCU. You lose on point nine tenths of a second because of offensive rebounding get you into overtime with 3 starters out. But we bounced back. I thought we played very tough again against New Mexico, and that was probably our best team effort in the last five or six games, was against New Mexico. We needed that type of effort today and it didn't happen. It's tough. Sometimes you just can't put your finger on it. If so, I probably would have written a book by now and be a millionaire.
Question: Can you talk about the job Sequoia did?
Coach Regina Miller: I thought Kameca did an outstanding job on her. Sequoia Holmes did okay. She probably struggled because she pressed because she wanted to do so well against Kim. But overall I thought Kameca Simmons did a nice job, but then Thorburn stepped up and hurt us. Those players played 40 minutes a game consistently all year. They're the heart and soul of Utah. And they really stepped up today. And Thorburn I thought late in the second half, actually midway to late in the second half, she really took over the game. And she took over the game either by setting her teammates up or dribble penetrating herself and making some plays around the basket. She ended up with 8 assists. We can't give that up to her.
Question: How do you adjust when things unexpectedely happen in a game?
Coach Regina Miller: The last time we had something like that, McCracklin went down in Wyoming. And that was an injury. We didn't take a warm up, we ended up losing by three. We probably lead the majority of that game at Wyoming. We wanted to get some warm up time. Things like that happen. You just got to adjust and you know go with the flow. We actually were able to come back and take a lead at that point. Again, like I said, we just didn't perform well going into the half. That last segment of the half really hurt us. But still we had an opportunity coming out the half; we just didn't take advantage of that. Against a good team, you can't go too many possessions and not execute. It will hurt you every time.
Players Mentioned
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